[mechrider89]

Originally Posted by AustinHunter

I did this back in the late 80's! The same still applies.

1. First, lighten your car as much as possible; AC compressor, heat shields, exhaust, etc.

2. Header back exhaust (not sure who makes headers now, but they are out there). don't buy an exhaust system - have a muffler shop do one for you - I used 2.5" pipe; get a really good free flow muffler.

3. Make sure you port match your head - intake and exhaust sides - to your header and intake manifolds and polish. This is important.

4. Ditch the fan, go electric, makes a difference on high rpms.

5. I never saw a difference with aftermarket coils and wires, but it never hurts. Indexing the spark plugs made a difference.

6. Build a new air intake hose assembly. Cut a hole out under the current air filter housing and run a hose down that faces forward under the lower spoiler - poor mans ram air or do a hood pop-up. replacing the intake from the airbox to the throttle valve - the resonator sucks.

7. Polish air meter box sharp edges and throttle body. There is an aftermarket TB you can get for the intake that is a bit larger.

8. Go custom pistons - .120 over to 3 liters and 10:1 compression (or more). factory rods are fine.

9. Valve springs are weak, I used shims to tigthen mine up - worked great.

10. Cams - not sure if you can still get reground cams (and according lash shims), but you can also order Japanese market cams.

I did all of this, plus suspension. I don't know what horsepower I got, but it was a fast as the late 80's V8 mustangs and handled much better.

If I was going to do it again? I'd probably drop in an American high rev, high HP, low/med torque small block.

Thanx for sharing the the info man! I dont know if im going to upgrade the original engine anymore. I might just put and LS1 engine in her and swap the drive tran but we'll see whats cheaper! haha